Rain is very romantic, I'm told
by coleytaylor
Summary: In which Simon and Baz get very lost and very wet. There is rain. Kissing. Together? Read to find out.


Baz woke up with the taste of regret bitter in his mouth. It reminded him of the feeling of his teeth rotting when he ate too many sweets. But this couldn't be gotten rid of with some dental care. No, he would have to take action to fix his mistakes. Apologies were such a hassle, though, and difficult to execute in a remotely aloof manner. It was particularly trying to apologize to his roommate, Simon Snow, but it was the very same boy that he found himself most often asking for forgiveness.

Really, though, this time, the apologizing should have been going both ways. _We're even, right?_ Baz thought, shifting onto his side to get a better view of Snow's sleep-tousled blond curls. _So if we both don't apologize..._ He forced himself to stop staring at the way his roommate's hair caught the morning light and look at the clock. Baz decided there would be time for reconciliation (or not) later. They had to get to class.

There was a special seminar for Magickal Creatures today. The entire class was to meet in the forest to observe its creatures ex vivo. A field trip of sorts. The coordinates for the clearing had been in an email from last week... If only Baz's computer hadn't been spelled shut, he could pull them up. How bloody convenient. He deserved it, though, as he had done the same to Simon's countless times before. Neither boy had considered that they might be needing to access their email the next day. Baz decided to wake Simon up to yell at him about it, or perhaps just to complain. And besides, they couldn't be late.

"Snow! Get your sorry arse out of bed! We're going to miss the seminar."

Magician, vampire, human alarm clock. Baz sure had it all.

Simon groaned and rolled over onto his back.

"Do we _have_ to go?" he mumbled.

"Well, if you want to pass the class..."

"Who needs Magickal Creatures? I'm not going to be a bloody zookeeper." Simon was sitting up now, rubbing his eyes.

"You've got to keep your options open. If this whole saving the world thing doesn't pan out, shoveling unicorn dung could be a fulfilling career." Baz smirked, and Simon threw a pillow at him. But he got up, and started to dress. Baz's eyes lingered on him for a moment, but he turned his attention back to the closed laptops before Simon could turn around.

Baz gestured to the computers. "You haven't got any idea how to get these things back open, have you?"

Simon shrugged.

"I must've spelled yours shut a dozen times. Surely you have the incantation memorized by now."

"I always just had Penny do it for me." Baz was glad to notice that Simon was not entirely succeeding at keeping a note of panic from his voice. Baz himself was quite worried. If he was going to show up somewhere at all, it would be on time, if not a few minutes early. But without the coordinates of the clearing-without their laptops, really-they would be wandering in the woods for ages trying to find their class.

"Just- Hurry up, will you?" Baz sighed. They should have taken Magickal Creatures the year before, but Baz had had a scheduling conflict, and Simon had mysteriously opted not to. He and Simon were the only two students in their year attending the seminar. All their friends would be in class already, so Penelope would not be available to sort out their problems as she usually did, and Baz couldn't be bothered to remember the names of anyone else in the class, much less what dorm they were in. It looked like they were going to have to wing it.

Simon came back from the bathroom several minutes later. Several minutes too late, in Baz's opinion.

"Do you honestly think the creatures of the forest are going to care how your hair looks?" he asked incredulously. It looked quite good, really. It always looked good to Baz. "Who are you trying to impress?"

Simon blushed deeply as he shrugged on his coat, trying and failing to look nonchalant. Baz pulled on his jacket as well, and his heart sped up. Simon clearly _was_ trying to impress someone. Unless Simon had been fraternizing with the younger members of the class in secret... or unless he had some weird thing for the teacher... No way. But that only left-he didn't allow himself to really think it. It couldn't be.

"You could've gotten away with it," Baz said, grinning as he closed the door behind them. "It was a rhetorical question, but those apple cheeks tell all. Out with it."

It was almost like their fight the night before hadn't even happened. Almost like Baz hadn't come back to the room from a long night of studying at the library to find his laptop spelled closed, and Simon grinning mischievously from the desk chair. Baz had been too exhausted to engage in what surely would have been scintillating banter, so he merely mumbled the incantation to incapacitate Simon's laptop as well and fell into bed, not even bothering to undress. Simon's face fell as he saw what Baz had done, and that was the last thing he saw before sleep took him.

Baz put their fight out of his mind and turned his thoughts to getting an answer. Simon squirmed uncomfortably under a hailstorm of probing questions from Baz until they reached the edge of the forest, but he did not yield. Baz was quite surprised at his roommate's resolve, but maybe, he realized, he had been subconsciously holding back. Unless he got the answer he wanted, which he couldn't, of course, perhaps it would be better not to know who Simon fancied.

They reached the edge of the forest and stopped.

"Baz, have you got the coordinates?" Simon looked glad to have an out from his interrogation

"I seem to recall them being in an email from the professor." Baz's soft tone was edged in anger, and he was glad to see the effect it had on Simon.

Snow looked unnerved, but he continued. "You've written them down, haven't you?"

"Crowley, Snow, are you really such a- a _child_ that you didn't bother writing them down yourself?" Baz had lost control of his words. "Do I have to do everything for you?"

"Baz, I-"

"This must be why you didn't take Magickal Creatures last year with everyone else. They didn't think you were mature enough. Well, they should have had you wait another year, because clearly-"

Simon mumbled something unintelligible.

"What?" Baz asked.

"I said, that's not why I didn't take it last year."

Baz was staring at Simon, who was staring at his feet. He regained control of his own voice, and softened it. "Then why didn't you?"

"I thought you might not want to be alone," he said, turning an even darker shade of puce than before. It was moments like these that made Baz think that maybe the impossible really could be true. The thoughts he had been pushing down all morning, was pushing down all the time, surged up now, and he shoved them back down again, but not before they had cooled his temper a bit. He needed to say something, something to assure Simon that he appreciated the sentiment, but he couldn't.

"I don't have the coordinates," he said instead. "I was going to get them this morning, on my laptop."

Simon seemed to have recovered from his moment of vulnerability. "Well, we've got to start looking somewhere," he said brusquely, and set off into the forest with Baz on his heels.

They walked for a few minutes. Baz opened his mouth a few times to say something, but it was Simon who broke the silence.

"The one time I get you back, it does us both in. How come you had to curse mine shut too?"

"Well, if it wasn't for the bloody Roommate's Anathema, I would've cursed you instead of your computer, and I'd be at the seminar already." It came out without malice, without real resentment, and Baz realized he was happier lost in the woods with Simon than he would be at the seminar without him.

Simon laughed. "Maybe. I mean, you started it, really."

"I started it?" Baz was incredulous. "I got back to the room, and you had spelled my computer shut. How was that me starting it?"

"Yeah, but you've just been generally unpleasant to me for, like, six years."

"It's in my blood. It's what Pitches were born to do." He meant it to be a joke, but wasn't it true? Baz had been without kindness and love from anyone in his family since his mother had died. It was easier to constantly poke fun at his roommate, at everyone, than to deal with _feelings_. Why bother with love and loss? In Baz's opinion, it was better to have never loved at all. Or, at least, he told himself it was.

"You don't have to be like this, you know. Just because your family is." Simon gave him a sidelong look.

"'Don't follow your family,' says the bloody Mage's Heir," Baz mocked. That seemed to shut Simon up. They plodded on in silence once again. There was still no sign of the class. The path looked like it hadn't been used in days. That was odd... Baz had little time to consider this prospect before he felt a fat drop of rain on his shoulder. He flinched, and they both looked up. The sky had suddenly turned grey, and the wind was picking up.

"That's funny," said Simon, hesitantly, softly.

"What?"

"The sky's exactly the same color as your eyes." Simon was staring straight into them.

Baz stared back. Simon's gaze was painfully intense, as though he was trying to convey some urgent message through it. Baz couldn't tear his eyes away, he had to find out what it was Simon was trying to say. Just a few more seconds, maybe, he couldn't be _that_ dense, he would get it. But he didn't have a chance. The heavens opened and it started to pour.

Baz shook his head like a dog. He blinked. He watched Simon's hair for a moment as it grew damp, and then sopping wet. _So much for all that time he spent in the bathroom this morning_.

"D'you reckon we should head back?" said Simon.

Baz nodded, and they turned around. They had only gone a few steps before Baz could no longer contain himself. "Too bad about your hair, right Snow? Whomever you wanted to impress never got to see it."

Simon didn't answer for a moment. "Yeah, they did," he said slowly.

Wait, what? They hadn't run into anyone on their walk through the castle, and the grounds had been deserted as well. That only left...

"For future reference, Snow, I prefer punctuality to well-styled hair. And yes, I have given it extensive thought." Baz was functioning on autopilot, right now. His mind was racing, he was trying to process this new information that was so inconceivable. Simon had spent extra time on his hair that morning to impress _Baz,_ to impress _him_.

"You think my hair is well-styled?"

"Well, you-yes," he admitted, grudgingly. _Make a move, Pitch!_ But he didn't. And neither did Simon.

Until he did. "We're alone, aren't we?" he asked, abruptly.

"Snow, your powers of observation are astute." They had stopped walking.

Simon stepped toward him, like he hadn't even heard. "Very alone." Simon was shaking from the cold, or maybe it was nerves, as he lifted his hand to Baz's cheek.

Baz felt the rain's chill, too, or maybe it was Simon's touch, and he quivered. He closed his eyes, let the rain drip off his nose. "Yes," he breathed. He could feel Simon's presence, that he was so very close, and they were on the brink of _something_, but then the rain stopped, and so did the electricity between them.

"Hey, the rain stopped." Simon's hand fell away.

Baz opened his eyes. "Thanks, I hadn't noticed." His voice was laced with the usual sarcasm, but with something else, too. Disappointment. He had let himself hope, and what had happened?

"We can catch the end of Chemistry if we hurry." Simon sounded a little dejected, too. Or maybe Baz was imagining it.

"Yeah." They set off, faster this time, not looking at each other. So maybe this was how it would end, not with a happily ever after or a painful breakup. A relationship over slightly before it started. Baz was content to stew on this for the remainder of the walk.

The sky had returned back to a vibrant blue as they neared the edge of the forest. _Precisely the color of Simon's eyes_. They were past the treeline now, and Baz had an unobstructed view of the heavens, but not of Simon's eyes. They were directed towards the ground. He had to see them.

Baz threw all caution to the wind and put his hand on Simon's chin, angling the other boy's face towards his. "The sky's the same color as your eyes."

The corners of Simon's mouth quirked up, but it was a small smile, nothing in comparison to the toothy grin he loved to flash. He looked almost forlorn.

Baz couldn't take it any more. He leaned in and pulled Simon's face to his own and kissed him. Simon jumped a little, and Baz froze, thinking he must have been wrong, that he had imagined everything. But then Simon started to kiss him back, and he lost the ability to think at all.

When he could form a coherent thought, he murmured "Fuck Chemistry." into Simon's lips. He felt the vibrations of Simon's laugh as he pulled the other boy closer still.

Baz didn't know how long they'd been kissing. At some point, he'd dropped his bag, and Simon had too, and he could feel Simon's hair drying under his fingertips. He ran his hands through it, and it was even better than he'd imagined, although not for lack of trying.

Baz felt a tap on his shoulder. That didn't make sense; both of Simon's hands were on his face. He heard a giggle, and he his heart sank. He broke apart from Simon to see it was exactly as he feared.

Penelope and Agatha stood not a meter away from them, now not even bothering to contain their mirth. There were students all over the grounds, eating apples and sandwiches and trying not to stare.

Baz paled, and Simon blushed profusely.

"So that's where you two were this morning," Agatha said, smirking.

"We-" Simon began.

"No time for excuses," Penelope said, handing them their bags and proceeding to drag the boys towards the castle. "You've got to get out of these wet clothes for afternoon lessons. Also," she added, to Agatha. "You owe me some money."

"Hold on a second," Agatha said, falling into step with the others. "We need confirmation that this was the real deal."

"What, are you suggested we might have just bumped into each other? With our mouths?" It was quite amusing to watch Simon's face fluctuate between tomato red and flaming scarlet, and to watch his lips part in surprise. His lips. Crowley, Baz wanted to kiss him again. But there would be time enough for that later.

"You did look rather enthusiastic," Agatha said, fishing in her pocket for coins with which to pay Penelope. Simon seemed to be trying to melt into the floor, but he survived the walk back to the dormitory.

When he and Baz had put on dry clothing, the four of them went down to catch the end of lunch, and Penelope did let them explain why they had really missed the morning's classes. At the end of the day, she helped them unspell their laptops and even wrote down the incantation on a slip of paper.

"Although I have a feeling you two won't be needing it again," she said with a meaningful look at them, and she bid them good night.

A few minutes later, Baz opened up his email. He was using the computer one-handed, so it had taken him awhile to type in his username and password. His other arm was around Simon's shoulder, and Simon was writing some sort of essay. He had to take extra care with his quill not to get any ink on the blankets they were huddled under.

There was an unread email from their Magickal Creatures professor in his inbox. Baz opened it.

"Aleister Crowley."

"What is it?" Simon looked up from his parchment.

"Listen to this: 'Seminar to be rescheduled due to inclement weather forecast.' Bloody brilliant."

Simon laughed. "I was kind of hoping we'd missed it. I hate Magickal Creatures."

"So do I. But at least I don't have to take it alone."


End file.
